


cradle in the shelter that we made our home

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Disabled Character, Downward Spiral, Family Fluff, Gen, Good Brother Luther Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Injury Recovery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Permanent Injury, Recovery, Sibling Bonding, Time Travel Fix-It, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 12:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18810964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Five gets the future he asked for, his home is intact and his siblings are all alive.That doesn't mean they're okay.





	cradle in the shelter that we made our home

**Author's Note:**

> i literally wrote this bc it's been 4 months and I'm still angry that Allison didn't get her prosthetic arm in the show 'cause disability rep but also she could have had an infinity gauntlet but they wasted the budget on pogo. 
> 
> anyway this is a allison and vanya-centric fic; yay sisters; no incest tho don't worry. :) okay, enjoy!
> 
> [also i have to say ummm i have no siblings so idk if i wrote them correctly but wow i sure hope so!]
> 
> CW (for this chapter): Implied Drug Use/Reference; cw tags will be added as I upload chapters and I will always add notes at the start for cw's.

 

-

 

It's time to put yourself to bed.

 

In the hospital, the friends you stole surround you.

 

Did the Devil sign your check, when they pulled you from the wreck?

 

There was nothing left to recognize about you.

 

-

 

Let it in, let it go.

 

When they lift you up, there's something you should know.

 

What you find, it might astound you, 'cause the world my friend, is big enough without you.

 

_-The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, pages 159-161_

 

 -

 

 

Five's lungs are screaming and his throat is raw when he receives his verdict.

 

 _No, not mine. Ours. We_ won, Five reminds himself.

 

 _I_ won, he thinks, his lips curling into a thin smirk.

 

He hasn't gulped in breaths like these, too big for his body and too clean and static with life, for decades, and he wants to squeal with a kind of joy that was unbecoming even in his teenage body.

 

He is _free._

 

 _Truly_   free. 

 

A black bar is stamped over his face, where his eyes are wide and his cheeks are rosy with exertion on the Commission's letter sized poster of him.

 

With that, Five Hargreeves, is _Temps Immortalis_ , untouchable and having caused so much trouble; that he led towards the gilded doors of the elevator to collect a one-way ticket into a parallel timeline that nests itself deep into reality, until it unravels into a thinly-threaded path where Five will find his home.

 

_Finally._

 

"Wipe that little smirk off your face.", laughs The Handler, as the doors slide closed on her pale face, sallow skin drawn over sharp bone.

 

"I said you all get to live. _Living_ , means living with consequences. Or as you kids would say, _Hasta la Vista, baby!_ ", she barks out in harsh laughter, and desperately, Five slams his hands against the doors, over and over.

 

_What is that supposed to mean?_

 

-

 

**Allison (The Rumor); April 5th, 2019 - The Umbrella Academy**

 

It's been five days since the End of The World, since time snapped itself back into being despite it all; and the whole world shudders with whiplash. The scientists on the TV in the Hargreeves' living room blame the seismic shift in earth's climate; shocked that the city was nearly decimated by a freak earthquake. They warn that there's going to be more to come, and Allison sits with her legs curled underneath her, sipping slowly at her cold glass of water through a paper straw, privy to a secret few only whisper about.

 

Five hasn't stopped whispering, his smaller hands clenched tightly around a stick of chalk as he stalks around their house, his heels clicking on the hardwood as he wails, so quietly that he thinks no one else hears him.

 

" _It's wrong- it's wrong- it's wrong-_ ", he screams out on the third night after the apocalypse, and Allison hears the glass of his bedroom window smash as something is thrown from his bedroom. She takes herself to look outside, and finds his desk smashed to peices in their courtyard, his papers blowing carelessly in the wind.

 

"Christ on a cracker, he needs a smoke.", Klaus mutters, flitting up beside her, his bare feet silent on the floor as he twirls into her field of view.

 

She wants to turn around and glower at her brother, tell him he's insensitive and selfish, and most of all, mean.

 

_Haven't they learned their lesson about being mean to each other?_

 

But, she doesn't have that many words. Allison reaches for her notebook in her back pocket, but she lets her hand rest there instead, and jut shrugs, as she and Klaus watch Five's papers swirl away in the wind.

 

 _Besides_ , Allison tells herself, _Klaus is just kidding. It's now he copes._

 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. We all have a lot of shit to deal with. But we'll get there, 'cause we're a family and all that jazz.", Klaus says, holding his hands up in front of him as he back away, back upstairs.

 

_Hello._

 

 _Goodbye_.

 

-

 

The TV snaps off on its own, rolling blackouts having been put in place while the power grid gets back up and running. Thank goodness, it isn't summer, when Allison remembered the usually drafty mansion seeming to sink two feet into its foundation with heat.

 

Klaus and Ben would walk barefoot around the house, pressing their cheeks into the ceramic pillars in the front parlor, and Diego and Luther would strip their shirts off, glaring at each other on the sofas while Five doused himself in buckets of water he would teleport back and forth from the basement to get. Allison would fill the bath with cold water, squealing along with Vanya as they dipped their toes in the water, imagining they were in the ocean, until Pogo, or their Father, would inevitably find them and force them back to their rooms.

 

_Vanya._

 

She runs her hand against the dressing taped over her throat, pressing down over where her stitches have knit the skin together, still rough and scabbed, feeling a still sharp pain bubble up through her chest, into her throat, warm and wet.

 

 _What if you just pushed a little harder?_ , she asks herself, imagining a spray of blood arcing across the glass case that houses the television. Allison frowns, shaking her head to dislodge the thought. She's been having thoughts like these more often, insidious lines that work their way into the back of her mind, waiting until she's unable to keep them quiet.

 

Mom has given her pills to silence the tight squeeze of pain that she no longer has the adrenaline to offset, but they don't work to quiet her mind, and she briefly considers her options; raid Klaus' secret hiding spaces for the last of the weed that they've got in the house, or send her usual guy in LA a message.

 

Allison was never as bad as Klaus, never an addict, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss watching the lines blur between what was real and what was just _fun_.

 

She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, lowering her hand to wipe away at the fingerprints that smudge across the glass.

 

 _I'll have to make a call._ , Allison decides.

 

She's in no condition to be smoking.

 

- 

_I heard a rumor you kicked yourself in the shin._

 

_I heard a rumor you did a cartwheel._

 

_I heard a rumor you never went to that rave._

 

Allison scribbles furiously until her hand cramps, pausing only to flex her fingers.

 

Luther sits across from her at the kitchen table, his bulky body perfectly stock still.

 

"Be careful. Five said we shouldn't play with time.", he tells her, lips pinched in a line he refuses to allow to quiver.

 

 _No more powers._ She writes, scribbling a winking face at the end of her sentence. _Ha, ha._

 

_I heard a rumor Mom only knows how to make doughnuts and cake now._

 

_I heard a rumor Klaus is actually three quarters penguin._

 

_I heard a rumor I was never born._

 

"Don't say that- _Jesus Christ_. Allison, don't play with that kind of stuff. You don't know what could happen, and you don't know _if-_ ", Luther spreads out his hands on the table, as if he's laying out chess peices, trying to make a battle plan.

 

"There's a healing process, like any other injury. When your powers come back, you don't want all this stuff you think is one big joke to come back. Five will kill us all if he has to make an adjustment again."

 

She takes her pen again, and circles the last four words.

 

_I was never born._

 

Underneath, she writes, _Would That be so bad?_

 

Luther squeezes his eyes shut and heaves a sigh so heavy, it's as if the world is shifting position across his massive shoulders.

 

"Have you...been up to see Vanya yet?", he says instead, and Allison lets her notepad drop to the table before she scrambles to pick it up again, flicking to a fresh page.

 

_Have you thought about just leaving me alone yet?_

 

"Yeah...but you're good company, I guess.", he says with a slight shrug. Luther looks like a mountain, eclipsing the kitchen cabinets behind him.

 

 _I'm tired_., Allison writes.

 

"I know.", Luther tells her. His hand extends across the table, clasping her free hand between his fingers. "I know. But...we're having a meeting later, about every- about _Vanya._ Diego's been with Mom since the jump and he- he said there's things we need to discuss, as a family. If you're not up for it, I'd understand."

 

-

 

Later, when Allison tries to remember the days of hazy springtime in the Hargreeves' mansion, after they had saved the world and before they had thought to start clearing the wreckage, she'll realize what was so wrong about all of it.

 

The _silence._

 

The utter quiet, that made all their words echo, that forced her into the narrow hallways at night, a ghost running from being alone with her thoughts. There were no records playing lectures of how to survive in the wilderness, barely the patter of feet, or the scream of triumph or defeat coming from her brothers. Mom, locked in the infirmary with Vanya, never called for breakfast.

 

It was the sound of _nothing_ , broken only by Five, crying into his pillow, beating his fists against the floorboards.

 

She would have told him that she could hear him, as she passed by his room in the early morning, if only Five didn't greet her with nothing but his eyes drawn to the ground, ringed black as bruises as he tells her that he's _going to fix it_ , over and over again until he disappears back into his bedroom.

 

She seeks him out simply for being available, and because he never asks questions. Five always assumed he knew better, and his years in the apocalypse have done little to make him less of a cynic.

 

Allison knocks on his bedroom door, holding her breath as she listens for him shuffle from his broken window, accross his rug, over his bed.

 

" _What_.", he says, his voice dry as the whiskey he had undoubtedly squirreled away from Reginald's liquor cabinet.

 

_Need you to do me a favor._

 

She writes too quickly, the letters running into each other.

 

"Allison. I promise- I'm doing _everything_ I can-"

 

Allison shakes her head.

 

 _Wait_ , she writes, before filling in the details on the final lines of her page, where she scribbles in a phone number with a Los Angeles area code, and tells him _, Ask for my usual, and to make it fast. I don't care how much it costs to get between coasts._

 

Five's eyebrows knit together, and his forehead has scrunched up the way that Allison remembers it would when he was a boy, carefully assembling puzzles on the floor of his bedroom, tongue poking out between his thin lips. 

 

"Your usual... _what_?', asks Five, his voice too slow to be quite right, like his mouth catches up two seconds too late with his brain.

 

Their eyes meet briefly as she snaps her gaze back down to the pad of paper between them, and wonders if she already sounds too much like _Klaus_.

 

Allison flips the page, thinking for a moment before she supplies her brother with his answer.

 

_Relaxer._

 

"You mean the stuff for your hair?"

 

Allison nods enthusiastically, grateful for once that her brother is ever the loyal soldier

 

_I don't really like it like this._

 

"Oh. I guess I can- I can do that later, okay? I forgot about that... Dolores doesn't have hair.", he mutters.

 

 _It's okay._ She pauses, and thinks of Klaus again. _We'll get there._

 

_-_

 

" _Mom said-_ ", Diego pauses, clears his throat. "Mom said her last scans on Vanya- Her body's not dying. It should be- even, any of us, muscles atrophy a little with disuse, it's why you're sore after missing a week of workouts, but it's- it's like someone just unplugged the toaster. But she froze after blowing up the moon and went to this timeline, just like us with Five."

 

"So...like someone severed the cord.", Ben fills in thoughtfully, his deep, soulful gaze boring into Allison, but she can't help but smirk.

 

 _I know a little something about that._ She writes, and thinks for a moment, before she draws her signature little smiling face, and turns the notepad to face her brothers.

 

Ben's eyes roll skyward, and he flickers for just a moment, as if he wishes he could get the ground to swallow him whole, but Klaus refuses to let him escape. Luther's gaze lowers, and Diego just shakes his head.

 

"What? She's right, that's _exactly_ it.", says Klaus, his fingers steepled before him. "Is Mom already working?- Mom can do brain surgery, right? She'll be back to- back to herself in no time. I'm not footing the bill for her new violin when she wakes up, by the way.", he tells them, even though it sounds an awful lot more like it's for himself.

 

"You really think this is all some kind of massive- _fucking-_ comedy don't you?", Luther snaps at him. "She's _our sister_ , you freak."

 

"Luther- let it go. _Just-_ ", Diego starts, but Klaus is already sneering into Luther's chest, poking him back with one stubby, painted fingernail.

 

" _You're the freak_.", he spits. "And _you're_ the one getting _exactly_ what you want. Vanya can't hurt anyone anymore. We fixed her. _Maybe you wish Allison hadn't missed-_ "

 

 _I didn't miss!,_ Allison wishes she could scream, but her hands twitch in her lap instead, unable to grip at her pen. Ben flickers back into her peripheral, and her cheeks burn as his gaze locks to her fingers. Ben was always watching them as children, always filing away their little quirks.

 

It seemed the years tethered to Klaus hadn't dulled his powers of observation.

 

" _Klaus-_ ", Diego groans, trying to pull back their brother by the vest. "C'mon, just- that's not the point, Klaus-"

 

"I cared about her, too!", Luther shouted, his fist slamming down on the card table between the couches. Allison jumped up as glass showered to the carpet beneath them.

 

"Oh, nice shot, big guy-"

 

"Will the two of you just _stop_? It's not about you, shitheads. For once, it's not about _you_.", Ben cuts in.

 

"Yeah, listen to Ben! Just shut up, and listen for once! _Vanya's not okay, she's not gonna be okay, and_ -"

 

Allison feels bile rising from her stomach, up through her throat, and runs.

 

-

 

Vanya's bedroom was always in the back of the house.

 

The furthest walk from the bathrooms the children shared, the longest, loneliest trek to the breakfast table, alone as she also had a separate staircase which led down to the lower levels, thickly carpeted with plush rug. Allison had thought, when she had been a jealous girl, that Vanya got her own stairs because she was some sort of twisted favorite of their father's. She realized now, her socks sinking into each step, that it was so she could freely go to the kitchens and the library, the infirmary and the school room, perfectly quietly, without being noticed or sought after by any of the others.

 

A backhanded advantage, something special to force them all further apart from her.

 

 _What happened to Vanya?_ Allison asked herself, the scenes of her sister collapsing into her arms after she had blown up the moon flashing through her mind's eye. Whatever Five had done, wherever he had gone after the moon started raining down on them, had taken less than a second; before they had collapsed into the parlor of their childhood home, blood gushing from her throat, turning Vanya's white suit red. Klaus had scrambled, sweat-slicked, for Luther and Diego, and Ben somehow floated above the chaos, his tentacles tucked securely once again in his shirt.

 

" _Holy shit!_ ", he had screamed, so loudly that the wineglasses on the rack behind them shook with force.

 

" _Language,_ honey!", Grace's mechanical voice sounded from the kitchen. "Oh, no, you know we can't have blood on the carpets! All of you need to wash your hands before you set foot in this house!"

 

 _How had she survived?,_ Allison remembered thinking, as Mom hovered carefully over she and Vanya, her hands still clasped in her much smaller sister's, tutting in concern.

 

"Girls, I've always told you not to play so rough. Especially not in such a nice tux! The dry cleaner's will not be impressed, and he's always such a nice man.", she murmured, gathering up Vanya in her arms as Allison helplessly scrabbled after her, absolutely unwilling to let go. "Oh, dear....Luther, would you bring your sister down with me, please.", she called, heels clicking on the hardwood as she disappeared with Vanya into the lower bowels of the house.

 

"Do you think we did it?", Luther whispered, letting Allison curl into his chest, dishtowels he had grabbed from the closest sink pressed against her throat.

 

 _I don't care!,_ she wanted to shout, before a solid, white wave of pain washed her down.

 

-

 

Vanya's bed has been turned to rest against the wall, just below the window, presumably to free up room for the collection of machines, which had taken up residence where Vanya's desk and a small bookshelf Allison remembered being filled with her sister's favorites used to be, dragged up from the infirmary and resting on a collection of varyingly bloody rolling trays. Grace must have been busy, from how much she was humming to herself, a sure sign her processors were dangerously close to overloading, as Allison watches from the door, cracked open just enough to let through a few cords to plug in to a socket in the hallway wall.

 

Her pink and blue polka-dotted skirt blocks Allison's view of her sister's face, though she could strain to hear Vanya's voice, still soft as ever, but sharp and gravelly as though she had just woken up.

 

"-don't want to see them, especially not like this.", Allison hears her say, as Mom fusses with her pillows.

 

"Vanya, I know it's different, but it was nice to see Diego, wasn't it? He's even brought your favorite records up, what about we play a couple, hm?"

 

" _What the hell does he think records are going do? Five shouldn't have brought me back!_ "

 

Allison winces, listening to the suffering so obvious in Vanya's voice, as if she was using all her strength just to force herself to speak.

 

"Five has worked very hard to have you here.", Grace told her, her hand reaching up to brush Vanya's hair from her face.

 

" _I don't belong here!_ ", she cries, and Allison feels her heart squeeze as she angles her head to see into more of the room, tilting her shin so her forehead can rest against the doorframe.

 

"Well, you just have to make the best of it, then, don't you?", Grace tells her cheerily. Allison can practically hear Vanya seethe beside her. "I'm going to put on The Ramones. I've never heard of the Ramones. And Allison, whenever you're ready, please come and join us!"

 

Allison's eyes widen momentarily, before she remembers, Mom's peripheral cameras must have caught her eye the moment she started to watch. Awkwardly, she ambles into the room, offering Vanya a small wave from just beside a heart monitor that reports her heart rate as perfectly, mathematically, normal.

 

Vanya's warm, dark eyes, the part of her Allison had always loved the most for making them look at least the slightest bit like _real_ sisters, had been replaced by cruel, white-filmed orbs, pupils blown wide as her head snaps to meet her sister's, her skin shadowed with graying bruises layered over her unnaturally pale cheeks. Her hair, miraculously, is the same shade of inky chestnut Allison has always remembered, slick with sweat and stuck to her forehead.

 

She reaches for her trusty notepad, only to come up empty from her back pocket.

 

"Oh- _Allison_.", Grace chuckles. "I'll go get some paper from the study."

 

She bustles out, leaving only Vanya, Allison, and the expanse of dead air between them. Vanya smirks, her hollow cheeks stretching in a grotesque fashion that makes Allison want to turn and run back to their brothers, squabbling downstairs.

 

"Relax, I'm over my ending the world phase. Mom was right, it wasn't a good look.", she says, and Allison musters up the most genuine grin she can manage.

 

It's small, but it's there.

 

Vanya is propped up on pillows, several layers of blankets draped over her bottom half, and a pair of the Academy's powder blue pyjamas buttoned up halfway to let the electrodes connecting her to her monitors snake through to her chest. _They must belong to Five_ , Allison reasons, _they are the same size, after all._

 

She wishes she could tell Vanya that she's sorry, that she loves her, that they can start over, and try again- but that will have to wait until Grace comes back with her notebook.

 

" _C'mere_.", Vanya murmurs, cocking her head to beckon her sister over. Wordlessly, Allison follows, letting herself fall into Vanya's mattress, as if she's tethered to her sister with an invisible, snapping cord.

 

Vanya waits until Allison is snuggled into her blankets, sinking into the fabric beside her, before resting her head on her sister's shoulder, to whisper into her ear; " _I can't move. Mom said one day, I might be able to, but for now, I'm stuck._ "

_

 

Grace returns with a pad of paper shortly after, and hands Allison a bright red pencil, sharpened to a needle-thin point, but it doesn't matter. 

 

She doesn't know what to say to that.


End file.
